How do small schools afford a qualified SENCO?

Small schools rarely employ a full-time SENCO: the SEND Code lets several small primary schools share one qualified-teacher SENCO, and the mandatory NPQ is fully DfE scholarship-funded for all state schools (2026). The duty itself is not optional. Every maintained mainstream school and mainstream academy or free school must designate a SENCO (special educational needs coordinator) who is a qualified teacher (SEND Code of Practice 2015, paras 6.84–6.85). What is flexible is how you resource the role, and there are three levers a small school can pull.

First: share the post across a cluster

The Code expressly allows a number of smaller primary schools to share one SENCO employed to work across them, as long as the arrangement gives that person enough time away from teaching and enough administrative support for the total pupil population of all the schools (para 6.92). There are two guardrails to record before you sign anything: a shared SENCO should not normally carry a significant class-teaching load, and should not be the head teacher at one of the schools (para 6.93). A cluster of three small village schools can lawfully run on one experienced SENCO this way, splitting the salary between them rather than each trying to fund a post alone.

Second: get the NPQ paid for

Since 1 September 2024 the National Professional Qualification for SENCOs (NPQ SENCO) is the mandatory qualification, and anyone newly appointed has three years to complete it. The cost is the part heads most often assume they cannot afford, and it is usually the wrong assumption. Scholarship funding is available to teachers and leaders in all publicly-funded schools in England, paid by the DfE straight to the training provider, so the qualification can cost the school nothing (GOV.UK, 2026). Staff who need the NPQ as a mandatory qualification for their SENCO role are prioritised, though the number of funded places each cohort is limited, so apply early.

Third: resource the role from SEN funding you already hold

You are not meant to find the SENCO’s time from thin air. Every mainstream school receives a notional SEN budget inside its delegated funding, intended to resource support for pupils with special educational needs, and SENCO time is a legitimate call on it. The three levers stack:

• Share the post so the salary is split across the cluster, not carried by one small roll.
• Use scholarship funding so the mandatory NPQ is met by the DfE, not your training budget.
• Draw on the notional SEN budget to fund the non-teaching time the role needs, recorded per school.

Worth knowing for your own planning: the notional SEN budget is not ring-fenced, so naming the SENCO’s time as a first call on it is a governance decision your governing body should sign off and minute.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.